On Thursday evening the grandmother of our daughter in law passed away in Melbourne, Australia.  Helena was a “survivor”, born in Poland, who had been through the camps and one of the few  survivors of the “death march” in 1945.  Apart from one cousin she lost all her family in the Holocaust and yet with her tenacity, hard work and special courage she built a life, married, ran a business and raised two highly successful daughters and lived to see grandchildren and great grandchildren.  We shall not see her like again.

Her testimony was recorded for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1996

http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn505875

The words below are the description that accompany her recordings.

Helena Bronislawa Blass, born March 28, 1921 in Bochnia, Poland, describes her parents and three siblings; being in Sosnowiec, Poland when the war began in 1939; being taken to work for the Germans in 1939; her father and brother being taken away in 1940; working with her mother and sister in 1941 for the Germans; being taken to the ghetto; being taken April 14, 1943 to Hirschberg concentration camp; being sent in August 1943 to Bolkenheim (Bolkenhain) concentration camp; working in a textile factory; being sent on a death march in January 1945; being liberated May 9, 1945; going to Landsberg, Germany in September 1945; going to France in 1947; going to Israel in 1947; moving to Italy then Australia in 1956; and her marriage and two children.

May her dear soul rest in peace and may her memory be a blessing for her family and the generations that follow.